Vmworld 2016

I was interested to see if they would make any major announcements about private cloud offerings, maybe something like a major VSAN upgrade. But maybe that is too small for a major conference keynote but I don’t think so!

One major announcement at VMworld was Cross-Cloud platform VCloud. I thought this was awesome announcement managing all your cloud environments through VCloud will give VMware customers the ability to not only have a familiar platform for their cloud services but also not feel tied down to a single cloud service or having to manage multiple cloud services all from different locations. I truly believe a hybrid solution of private and public cloud will be the future for IT and business. It just makes sense. have the tier 1 apps private and have dev and lower tiered apps running public.

All in all the announcements were good but not really what I wanted to see.

The vendors

This was my first VMworld and also my first conference of this size. When I walked into the sponsor showroom it was kind of overwhelming at first. never really seen booths this big in size and very elaborate. It seemed like these vendors all brought their A game for VMworld, full-size demo’s, product reviews every hour on the hour. and awesome giveaways for attendees. It also seemed like every vendor had a magician, which was awesome. most of the time they would do some cool tricks without even giving a product pitch. If I had to rank one vendor who went above and beyond this year it had to have been Veeam. their booth was awesome. Their Magician was amazing and their sales and tech staff were able to answer every question I had.

As for the technology that was front and center this year, One was converged infrastructure. VCE/EMC was Showing off top tier products at top tier prices, VXrail, VMax, and VBlock. Truly a great solution depending on the business you are running but also expensive. Hyper-Converged infrastructure was heavily present. With great companies like Simplivity, Nutanix, and VMwares VSAN. I was personally interested in learning these products just to expand my own knowledge of the technology and products.

The Parties!

The gatherings where awesome this year I met a lot of really smart and cool people. The Veeam party was off the hook, an awesome DJ, some wicked cool violinist, and cellist. Not to mention the full bar which is awesome. They had these awesome synchronized bracelets that were controlled by the DJ so the room was lighting up together it was a really cool to see! Whether or not you use Veeam as a product or not one thing is clear, THEY THROW AWESOME PARTIES!

Conclusion

VMworld was an awesome experience. The networking, the atmosphere, and the venue were a sight to see. Will I be going back next year? Most definitely I can’t wait. if you love technology and shooting the shit with people then VMWorld is an awesome experience and one that you should have..